


Death Grip

by starryvagabond



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 21:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1443919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryvagabond/pseuds/starryvagabond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s three days before Kate shows up again. And it’s not in the way he expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Grip

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr drabble based off of a request for angst involving Clint and Kate. Unbeta'd. Enjoy.

 

She’s everything he has ever managed to grasp hold of, keep tightly in his fists.

There are nights that she doesn’t come home and he knows why but never questions it, never pushes it. Afraid that if he ever does ask or vocalize his opinion that she’ll leave.

She’ll leave like the rest of them.

Clint never intended to fall in love with her. Remembers when he met her how small she was, how pale and fragile and smelling of lilacs.

He’s watched her grow (slightly) in stature, leaps and bounds in skill and attitude. He loves her,  _goddamn_  he does.

It aches sometimes how much. He hates it.

Tonight the wind smells of blood and there’s sirens in the distance, the sounds of Iron Man’s lasers off to the west. The Avengers have not fought together in a long time. Clint misses it, misses them. For a brief moment he considers to go and don his purple and black suit and jump across rooftops like he’s done so many times before.

He hates not knowing what to do.

She’s not here again. Not here and there’s no reason for her to be.  _What a fucking miserable existence, Barton_ , he laughs quietly to himself before turning to go back inside, Lucky like a phantom at his heels.

-

It’s three days before Kate shows up again. And it’s not in the way he expects. She doesn’t walk through the door (loudly, like she usually does), but instead he receives a phone call. It’s not from her, either.

The next thing he knows Clint’s standing in an icebox of a room, staring down at what used to be Kate Bishop.

A tentative hand reaches out to touch, scared yet fascinated.

She’s cold.

"Are you with your mother now?" he asks. It’s all he can think of, and the coroner knows she is who they thought she was.

-

He isn’t invited to the funeral, but he shows up anyway. So does Lucky, though he has to stay outside. He sits in the back of the gaudy church that he knew Kate would cringe at the sight of, arms crossed over his chest as the priest says some bullshit prayer.

_Our Father, who art in Heaven…_

Bull. Shit. There is no god that would take everything from him.

Clint critiques the entire affair in his head, and leaves before the last  _Amen_  is said.

-

It’s a week before Clint goes to find her grave. It’s no easy task: the cemetery is huge and full of people. He starts early in the morning and finds hers a little after four. Freshly dug earth surrounded by flowers.

He didn’t bother bringing her any. She would have laughed at him anyway.

Her headstone is next to her mother’s. Katherine Bishop. She would forever be known by the name she hated the most.

Clint reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pocket knife. In small letters he chisels the word “Hawkeye” into the stone using the makeshift screwdriver.

He lets the dirt slip through his fingers, like running water. The way he let her slip away.

There’s nothing he can say or do now. Just stand there like an idiot till dusk and then he’s asked to leave by the groundskeeper.

He leaves, and he never finds the courage to go back.


End file.
